The census bureau uses two basic criteria to determine if an individual or a family can be considered in poverty. The first step is to assess the income. There can be different forms of income in addition to that which one would earn from a normal job. There are, for instance, social security, supplemental security income, public assistance ,veterans payments, pension, retirement income, interest dividends, royalties ,alimony, and child support. These are all considered money income. The second step is to calculate the individual's/family's needs (the amount of money required to survive). This is called a poverty threshold.

The poverty threshold varies according to the size of the family and the age of the members. It's important to take into consideration that poverty thresholds are not always accurate. They are used as "statistical yardsticks" to try and determine the cost of living. After income and poverty threashold are determined, the income is divided by the threshold. This is called the ratio of income to poverty. If your income is less than your threshold you are considered to be in poverty.

Overall, I think that this process is an effective way of determining poverty for the majority of Americans. I do think, though, that there are some holes in this system. For example, poverty thresholds are a set amount, no matter where you live in America. The cost of living, however, is much more expensive in L.A. than it is in Escanaba. As a result of this there are people who could be starving but at the same time earning an income surplus according to their poverty threshold statistic. I think this could be fixed by making poverty thresholds correlate with the cost of living in different regions. Another problem that I noticed was that people living without conventional housing were not included in the census. I don't know how this can be solved, but if the census dosn't include the homeless then the...

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...Socialstratification defines any structure of inequality that persists in a society across generations. Social strata are groups of people — who belong to the same social class or have the same social level. Social strata are organised in a vertical hierarchy. In the early societies people shared a common social standing. In the hunting and gathering societies there was littlestratification: men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants. The general welfare of the society depended on the mutual sharing of goods between all members and no group emerged as better off than the others.
Social inequality began with the emergence of horticulture and pastoral societies. For the first time people had reliable sources of food and the population increased. Not all members of the societies needed to be involved in the production of food and people were free to choose their occupation. In the agriculture societies that followed, the division of labour resulted in job specialisation where people valued certain jobs more than others. The industrial revolution that started in the 18th century further differentiated people according to their wealth and occupation.
Socialstratification can be organised in terms of class, gender, race and ethnicity, age or disability. Social classes based on...

...OF THE CONFLICT THEORY IN EXPLAINING STRATIFICATION.
‘Stratification’ is a term used to characterize a structure of inequality where individuals occupy differentiated structural positions and the positions are situated in layers (or strata) that are ranked hierarchically according to broadly recognized standards .( Durlauf 1999)
The conflict theory in relation to socialstratification argues thatstratification,”reflects the distribution of power in society and is therefore a major source of disorder and coercion.”(Stanley 1998 : 227). The conflict theory is an acceptable way of understanding and explaining socialstratification however on its own it does not adequately answer all the questions about stratification .In this essay, discussion will focus on how the conflict theory point of view can be applied in explaining stratification within society. It will further attempt to elucidate how other alternative theories such as functionalism and evolutionary theory explain the existence of stratification in the society.
Many followers of the conflict theory where socialstratification is concerned argue that stratification occurs through the struggle for scarce resources. They derive this argument from Karl Marx who in his early of capitalism wrote that, “all history is characterised by a...

...SocialStratification
* Refers to the ranking individuals and groups in any given society
* Tends to be transmitted from one generation to another
* Is the hierarchical arrangement and establishment of social categories that may evolve into social groups as well as of statuses and their corresponding roles
* May be viewed as a social structure, as a social process, or as a social problem
Basic Concepts of Inequality
1. Attributions – attributions play a very vital role in socialstratification. It assigns to people different attributes as a result of differences
2. Stereotype – one assumes that persons who fall into a particular category on the basis of certain characteristics also have many characteristics that we assume to belong to that category
3. Self-fulfilling prophecies – once we categorize people through assigning a stereotype, our perception of their behavior if filtered through that stereotype
4. Self comparison – social scientist find that people need to compare themselves with others in order to establish for themselves what kind of people they are.
5. A fair world – related to the key of comparison in social life are beliefs about justice or the fair distribution of rewards.
6. Just world hypothesis – according to this, people like to believe that there is justice, that...

...﻿
SocialStratification: Impacting Positions in Society
Socialstratification is vertical hierarchical arrangement which differentiate people as superior or inferior. Societies are stratified in three ways which are,1) Social Class; 2) Racial and Ethnic stratification; and 3) Gender.
1) Social Class: According to Karl Marx, Class society is based around a primary line of division between two antagonistic classes, those who owns the means of production and those who do not own. Comer added to it in 1978 “Social Class implies having or not having the following: individual rights, privileges, power, rights over others, authority, life style choices, etc.”(Comer, 1978)
2) Racial and Ethnic Stratification: Hierarchy based upon race, religion, national origin, etc. Race is basically a distinguishing genetic characteristics resulting in physical characteristics. Whereas, ethnicity is a condition of being culturally rather than physically distinctive.
3) Gender: It generally deviates from biological distinction to sociological distinction in the form of masculine and feminine. One is born male or female but is stratified as man or woman later on.
Karl Marx in his work ‘Das Kapital’ volume – 3 had provided the general classification that after the primitive communist society all succeeding societies have been class...

... SocialStratificationSocialstratification is a system by which a society ranks categories of people, it is a structure of inequality (a general advantage or power of one group to another), it describes the way in which different groups of people are placed within society. The status of people is determined by how society is stratified for example wealth and income which is the most common basis ofstratification, social class, race and ethnicity, gender, age and disability and also religion, for example the caste system in India.
Stratification is also based on an open or closed system:
Open-Status is achieved through merit and effort, this is sometimes known as meritocracy. The United Kingdom is a kingdom is a relativity open society although disadvantaged groups within society face a glass ceiling.
Closed-Status is ascribed (given title at birth) rather than achieved, ascribed can be based on several factors such as family background, political factors may also play a role for example societies organised on the basis of communism and also ethnicity and religion.
Individuals and groups have unequal access to advantages and disadvantages in society based on their position within the stratification scheme.
The higher a individual or group is within the category of stratification, the better...

...﻿Good afternoon Madam Chairperson, ladies and Gentlemen, my fellow opponents a warm welcome to you all. The topic for our debate is “socialstratification is an inevitable and necessary evil”. Before I get into the moot for our debate let me firstly define socialstratification, according to the literature; Browne stated and I quote “it refers to the division of society into pattern of layers or strata made up of a hierarchy of unequal social group” end quote. (campus 2013) We the opposing team strongly believe that socialstratification is not an inevitable and necessary evil because according to Karl Marx, who argues and I quote “socialstratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society; also that socialstratification benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. Thus, it creates a system of winners and losers that is maintained by those who are on the top” end quote. My fellow opponents, Marxist also argued that there are inevitable conflicts of interest between the major social classes in society derived not entirely from their functional usefulness but to a considerable extent from their power to exploit the property-less Proletariat. The people who are losers do not get a fair chance to compete, and thus are stuck on the bottom. For example, wealthy families pay low wages to nannies...

...﻿SOCIAL SCIENCE 101
(Society and Culture with Population Education)
Unit IV. SocialStratification
Meaning of SocialStratification
When sociologists speak of stratification, they are referring to social inequality and social ranking, thus, stresses the differences among people.
Is an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social categories ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources.
Is the hierarchy arrangement and establishment of social categories that evolve into social group together with statuses and their corresponding roles.
Is a system whereby people rank and evaluate each other as superior or inferior and, on the basis of such evaluations, unequally rewarded one another with wealth, authority, power and prestige. One result of each differentiation is the creation of a number of levels within society.
SocialStratification may be viewed may be viewed as a social structure, a social process, or a social problem.
As a social structure, it may be as the differentiation of statuses and social roles into ranked orders or a system of layered hierarchy of social relationship.
As a social process, it can be thought of as a division of a society into...

...SOCIALSTRATIFICATION
Definitions

SocialStratification: the systematic ranking/ hierarchy of social positions whose occupations are treated as superior, equal or inferior to one another.

Social Strata: groups of persons who occupy positions of same or similar rank.

Open system: a social system is „open‟ to outsiders if and insofar as its system of order does not deny participation to anyone who wishes to join and is actually in a position to do so.

Closed system: a social system will be closed to outsiders when its subjective meaning and binding rules prevents the participation of certain persons.

Social mobility: movement of an individual from one group to another in society.

Horizontal: the movement from one social position to another on the same level. Eg. Changing from a Baptist to a Methodist.
Vertical: mobility occurs when individuals move from one social stratum to another whether it be higher or lower than the previous. Eg. Moving from wealth to bankruptcy or from poverty to a Lotto winner.


Intergenerational mobility: changes in the social positions of children relative to their parents. a plumber whose father was a doctor shows downward intergenerational mobility. Intragenerational mobility: changes in social position...

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